Dialogues between informatika and information science

reflections based on the Mathematical Theory of Communication and Social Epistemology

Abstract

On the one hand, the Information Science movement was consolidated in the western world from the 1960s onwards, expanding its intellectual influence in Latin American countries, replacing a French-European tradition of Documentation, and as a means of ideological and information control; on the other, the communist block reacted with their own proposal: Informatics. Given this, this essay aims to create a space for reflection on some points in which Informatics influenced Western Information Science, more precisely the American one, especially in the first decades of the Cold War, as well as in the other way, that is, the influences from the United Stated Information Science on Informatics. We base our reflections on two schools of thought: the Mathematical Theory of Communication and Social Epistemology. The research question is as follows: despite the so different marketing and ideological aspects of the capitalist and socialist blocks, is it possible to verify some theoretical convergences in the construction of Information Science and Informatics? Methodologically, it is a bibliographical and exploratory research. It is concluded that although the Soviet Union distinctly presents social information as something important for the ideology of the communist party, the scientific and technical information was also greatly improved and valued by the Soviets, as well as the United States did not always prioritize the technical aspect of information. The two views – social and technical – walked together, sometimes one more predominating, sometimes the other, in the two blocks, depending on the moment and the objectives.